Faced with the reality of a steady decline in Barbados’ population since post-independence, the Ministry of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment established a National Population Policy Commission in 2019, to come up with strategies to address this decline.
Recently, the Commission held three hybrid town hall meetings at venues across the island to hear the views of Barbadians on the Draft National Population Policy. The document provides recommendations on how to respond to population-related challenges to achieving our shared aspirations of a fair and decent quality of life for all citizens given the country’s scarce resources.
The policy also seeks to address three policy goals:
- Maintain a population structure to sustain adequate levels of social care, productivity and labour force participation for inclusive and sustainable development
- Provide Barbadians and non-nationals now and in the future with opportunities for personal development and
- Promote integrated settlement development that safeguards the ecological balance for housing, agriculture and green and clean spaces
It also outlines government’s role in maintaining quality services, adequate infrastructure, and a clean and green environment for thriving economies.
Chairman of the Commission, Roberta Clarke, explained the rationale for the policy during a recent interview with the Barbados Government Information Service.
“A population policy outlines strategies that will increase the likelihood that a country continues to have a population size and balanced age structure to achieve its economic, social and cultural development goals. In fact, a population policy is part of planning for the future.
“The main objective of this draft Population Policy is to promote sustainable and inclusive development and good quality of life for Barbadians and residents, without compromising environmental sustainability and the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The Policy is only a draft developed by the National Commission and is not endorsed or adopted by the Government,” she stated.
Ms. Clarke shared that since the 1960s there has been a consistent decline in Barbados’ fertility rates. On average, the number of live births per women in reproductive age groups declined from 4.3 per cent in 1960 to 1.8 per cent in 2017.
“A population policy outlines strategies that will increase the likelihood that a country continues to have a population size and balanced age structure to achieve its economic, social and cultural development goals. In fact, a population policy is part of planning for the future.”
Chairman of the National Population Policy Commission, Roberta Clarke
Of equal importance, the National Population Commission Chairman maintained that if the population rate had remained at 2.1 per cent since 1980, the current number as at 2020, would be approximately 360,000 instead of the approximately 270,995 people. However, the outcome of the recently completed Population and Housing Census will provide an accurate indication of the current population.
Additionally, Ms. Clarke proffered that a longer life span of the over 65 elderly population due to improvements in elder care had led to a situation where the “number of people dying exceeds the number being born”.
As a consequence, she believes that the population growth rate will continue to “fall and at the point where the number of live births and the number of deaths is equal, then the population of Barbados will stop increasing”.
Given this situation, Ms. Clarke reasoned that unless interventions are developed, Barbados would become a steadily “greying society” and this might “limit our capacity to care for each other, to maintain the expected levels of investments in quality health, education, social security, and infrastructure and is likely to affect innovation and productivity”.
“We think that Barbados must be a place where people can age with dignity, and feel assured that they will receive quality care. It must also be a place where young people want to stay, because there are opportunities for them to have a dignified and secure future,” she noted.
Underscoring the importance of the public’s input into the document, the Chairman acknowledged that the consultations were important to building transparency and trust in public policy development while giving the public opportunities to influence policies by sharing their experience and expertise.
Ms. Clarke pointed out that while there were several approaches to managing a country’s population size, with the CARICOM Single Market and Economy in place, the Policy recommended managed migration, which is a careful approach to attracting persons to come to Barbados to live and work in areas where skills and expertise are needed.
She stressed: “This should be closely monitored to ensure that migrants are integrated in an orderly and fair manner and that Barbadians are not displaced from the labour market or otherwise disadvantaged. The draft Policy also makes recommendations on how Barbadians living elsewhere can be encouraged to return home permanently or through taking advantage of remote working arrangements to contribute to the vitality of our country.”
The Commission’s Chair added that when attracting persons to live in Barbados, government must ensure that the infrastructure is in place for water availability, housing, solid waste management systems, public utilities, transportation systems and health and educational services.
Ms. Clarke is optimistic that the final document would capture the concerns, interests and priorities of the population as the country move towards a workable solution to addressing the population decline.